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Health & Fitness

Religion In A M2M World

In a world that is fastly moving toward machine to machine and mobile to mobile conecting, Facebook, Twitter, text messaging how can we find faith?

In a world that is fastly moving toward machine to machine and  mobile to mobile connecting, Facebook, Twitter,  text messaging how can we find faith?  There was a time when the only way to find answers to life and faith, humans would find a sherpa.  A person to teach and help find our way.  That person would do something that is core to humanity that seems to not happen much anymore.  They would listen. 

Have you taken to time to think about the old saying; you were given one mouth and two ears so that you can listen twice as much as you talk.  But we have ten fingers and two eyes.  So does that mean we can share five times more than we receive.  If you scan your Facebook or Twitter feed,  can you honestly say you see and read what everyone is saying to you?  I can safely guess that the answer to that question is, "No".  Partially because what we put out there is not really directed at, or to, any one person most of the time.  We are just sharing our thoughts.  Well the Internet and our cell phones have become flooded with others thoughts that are not really relevant to our real lives.

Then in this cloud where is the faith or religion?  Is it there?  Can it be there? 

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Well the simple fact that I am writing this blog and you are reading it says that there is hope. I put out there positive information here and in other places on the web, as do many others.  But is it what we need or is it feeding our modern technology addiction?

If you have a question about your faith or anything in life all you need to do is type it in a search bar and you will get a list of answers.  There was a time that we could accept the answer to our questions was, "Because" or "It's tradition" or "that is how we were created".  Those answers and others like them seem no longer acceptable to our "modern" mind. 

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So has God been replaced by Google?  Sadly, many people are more and more suggesting yes.  The term "Spiritual" is taking hold.  We are now saying, "I am spiritual but not religious". Society is saying that there is still stuff out there I can't find a convincing answer on-line so I have faith that there must be an answer.  So that means that there is something bigger in place in the universe that I can't understand.  So can everything really be Googled? Try to explain what happens after death by doing a Google search… Um not so clear…

But does religion really hold the answers?

Well if we look at it in modern terms of business.  A business that survives the test of time and still can generate enough income to continue must be doing something right.  Well,  religion has been around for a long time.  They have "been in business" for a long time. It is what they do....  To help us find what is missing in our lives.  Now I have my idea on who or shall I say where I find my personal religion and I do not assume that you will choose the same one as me.  But one thing that I do know about religions around the world is that it takes people and relationships. It has never been able to be automated. In ancient Grease and Rome some of the first coin operated machines did dispense holy water or put on a show. But these were only things that would amuse or supply people with what they needed. But it is not what they came to their place of worship for. It is also not how they learned how to worship.

Can we learn to worship on the Internet?

Well this is a mixed answer. No you cannot learn worship from the internet. Because worship and faith has always been handed down one person to the next through traditions. Now I hear you already just because it has never been done before doesn’t mean that it can’t be done now or in the future. However, there is something about faith that you need to see, touch and hear. You need to be able to see that faith or belief in someone else’s eyes and hear it in their voice. How do you really know if someone is trying to pull a fast one on you if you can not see them and hear their words? Priests, and I am sure others, are sometimes told, “the people will know”. Meaning that if you lose your focus and start preaching or teaching something that you no longer believe or never did, people will be able to see through your lie. In either how you say something or what your eyes say. This you really can not get from the internet. Youtube provides a video but there is still something not real about the people. You know it is set-up. They put the camera in front of them. The edited out what was not right. They put thought into their recording (like mine attached). The ability to tell if what they are saying is authentic becomes clouded.

So, can you learn to worship on the Internet?

Well, it is possible. There are many great articles, podcasts and youtube videos where people (like myself) try to share what their faith means. You can learn new ways to focus your worship. You can learn new songs. You can learn new prayers. You can well do a lot….

But there is a danger to trying to find faith on the internet… you lose faith…

You lose faith in others. Relationships are, as I have hinted, is at the core of faith. In Christianity the word Church (big C) does not refer to a building. It means the people. Most faiths have a way to describe this “coming together”. In mine we tend to use examples of the trees and branches needing each other or body made up of parts needs each part.

But the truth is that people need other people. And need other people to hear them. Not just this is my “update” or what I am doing in 140 characters or less. But to really hear me. And when it comes to religion, the place where we go to ask the most deepest questions of ourselves, we need to be heard. Yes, most religions have some form of prayer that we believe is “heard” by something bigger and smarter than us. But we also need to be heard on a human level. That what we have decided to take on as a belief system is something real. That we are really not alone. We all love to be unique but it is only in feeling connected that we feel fulfilled. So far this technology has not been able to truly connect us to each other.

This is the age where a phone call is an invasion of privacy. An email never comes from the person we want to hear from. The people finder websites can not find the people we have lost in our lives. And God does not have a 140 limit.

One last thought…. Have you ever asked a question and the answer was not to the question you asked but to what you really needed to know? Google doesn’t do that, God does.

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